Another electrical outage in Cuba led to widespread power outages in Havana and other parts of the country Friday evening local time, state media reported. The entire island was plunged into darkness, according to independent media.
The Cuban Ministry of Energy and Mines announced on X that the failure had led to a drop in electricity production in the western part of the country, which had resulted in the “collapse of the national electrical system.” “Work is underway to restore” power, it added.
The independent portal 14ymedio writes about a “total blackout”, as a result of which “once again the country has completely plunged into darkness”. The portal's sources confirmed the lack of power in many cities and provinces. This is the first such extensive blackout this year – assessed 14ymedio.
Cuba has been struggling with a serious energy crisis, fuel shortages, and power shortages in the electrical grid for months. From October to December 2024, there were several total blackouts, and frequent power outages deepened residents' dissatisfaction and became a cause for protests.
The current economic and social crisis on the communist-ruled island is considered one of the most severe since the revolution led by Fidel Castro in the 1950s. There is a shortage not only of electricity, but also of basic necessities, including food, medicine and fuel. In the last two years, more than half a million people have fled the country of around 10 million people. (PAP)
It's not just energy that's missing, the problem is almost everywhere
Cuba, which is in the throes of an economic crisis, is running out of basic food products, even the coffee grown on the island, according to local media reports.
As noted by the daily “Granma”, the main press organ of the Cuban Communist Party, the growing shortage of coffee is the result of a decline in production caused by a lack of workers on plantations, a phenomenon, the newspaper adds, unheard of in the first years after the Cuban Revolution.
The independent Radio Marti notes that the first years of the communist regime in Cuba were marked by record coffee production. In 1961, it reached 60.3 thousand tons.
According to data from the Cuban Ministry of Agriculture, by the mid-1970s, annual coffee production had fallen to 20,000 tons, then gradually decreased to 10,000 tons in 2022. Currently, it is estimated at less than 6,000 tons per year.
The radio station notes that coffee production in Cuba would be even lower if it weren't for foreign companies investing in plantations, mainly from Italy. In the case of rice cultivation, the key projects on the island are those of investors from Vietnam.
Cited by Radio Marti, social activist Yasser Sosa said that along with the increasing shortages of basic food products, the phenomenon of malnutrition in Cuba is increasing this year. He added that it particularly affects seniors and children.
According to estimates by the non-governmental Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), 89 percent of the population of the island, inhabited by 11 million people, lives in extreme poverty. (PAP)
wia/ sp/
